Drone warfare in Waziristan has long been legitimised through a discourse on humanism that claims very low rates of civilian casualties and a concerted effort to spare the lives of the innocent. But what of the two children who lost their lives to a drone strike in South Waziristan just yesterday? Pakistan has denied that they initiated the drone strike but if they didn’t, answers should be sought regarding who did.
Drone strikes in Waziristan have killed a substantial number of civilians in the past; tearing apart Waziri civil society and further cultivating a culture of terror. We now know that drone essentialism-a conviction claiming that drones are used in a way to minimise suffering-conceals a process that has enabled drones to become terror weapons.
These were the same justifications provided by the US when it waged its war on terror against Pakistan; arguing that it represented a kinder way of fighting insurgents more in line with international statutes on war-so precise that they kill only the intended target, magically sparing everyone else.
But the truth is that drone operators themselves do not know how many civilians lie in collapsed buildings. In a war where insurgents do not wear uniforms, they use a flawed methodology that counts all military-aged males in a strike zone as combatants.
While there are no reliable accounts of the exact number of casualties produced by drone attacks, the error rate is incredibly high. Material casualties set aside, the terror of drone strikes lies in their ability to impart psychological and cultural damage.
Even when drones kill relatively few people, they terrify many more. It is impossible to uproot terrorism through a culture of fear for the innocents who watch and hear the incessant buzzing of drones circling and hovering over their neighbourhoods for hours, sometimes, for days at a time. That alone is enough to ruin someone’s life. Imagine the horror when they actually die due to such a strike. *